10 Things I Hate About China

When I was in China I had a lot of ABCDs ( Another Bad China Day ), but I was not the only one who was from time to time very upset about everything in China.

Before I start bragging I want to say that this is only my opinion and I don’t hate China at all, this is only a summary about things I, as a foreigner, don’t get along with in China sometimes.

So here are my 10 things I hate about in China:

I. The Metro

The metro is super big in China, just changing the line can take you up to 15 minutes because you have to walk so long just to get to the next line. Also a lot of metro stations have over 10 exit and entries, which can be confusing for a girl, who has no sense of direction (me).

Another thing I hate about the metro is, Shanghai and Beijing are super big cities, I don’t get why the metro stops working after 10.30 p.m. In Germany the metro works until 1 a.m. in the morning or even longer and starts working at 5 a.m. again.

II. Weekends Or Rush Hours

Rush hours are probably everywhere in the world crowded and it takes you longer to get home. That case is also in China, but the thing is, in China it really stresses me out just to see the mass of people trying to get into a bus or a metro BECAUSE: Chinese people always act like their life depends on getting into that metro or bus, so they push you like there is no morning and I were in several situations where it was almost impossible to breath.

That is why I hate shopping or going to public places on weekends in China.

III. Lining Up

Usually it works like this: If you go shopping and find something you like, you line up in the queue in front of you and wait until it’s your turn to pay. But not in China, sometimes I wonder why this word ‘lining up’ in China even exists when no one is doing it. It is a must sometimes to jump the queues otherwise you will line up until the shop is closing.

IV. Spacing

Now if you manage to find the real queue and line up, congratulations! But be aware that the person behind you will constantly try to push you forward, because they are impatient for some reason. Every time they do it in China I get so angry because, first, I don’t want to be pushed towards the person before me and second, I don’t want them to touch me at all. But Chinese people don’t care about it, if you push them in a crowded place. They really don’t care.Why do I know it? Because I tried it: I was pushing people back, pushing them out of my way, just pushing them by fun, just to see how they react. And they didn’t react at all. Most of the time they are glued to their phone and just step away when I push them, they don’t even look into my face or complain or say something. If someone is pushing me I always give them an evil look but they continue on like nothing happened.

V. Public Hygiene

I really don’t know how to call this part, but some manners are just disgusting in China, but that is normal there. Sneezing in public is normal, but if a Chinese sneezes, they don’t cover their mouth, they just turn their head into another direction, so be careful if you are walking or standing next to a Chinese person, they might turn around and sneeze into your face.

Also burping is as a super normal thing, but when I was standing in line to buy an eyebrow pencil, a beautiful Chinese girl was standing behind me very very very close and she burped right into my neck. This was like the second week where I was in China and I was so shocked that I turned around and gave her a very surprising look. But she just stood there and stared back as if nothing happened.

But the most disgusting thing is that sound they make when they want to spit on the floor. You can hear that sound everywhere, even in restaurants. They pull up their slimes in their throats and nose from deep inside and then they spit on the floor. Everywhere. This is something I will never get used to it. When I was in Nanjing we were in a restaurant and two ladies who were cleaning the table next to us did that while we were eating. Bah!

VI. Internet

What would I do if I wouldn’t have a VPN? I am so thankful and glad for VPNs and I will never brag about the internet in Germany again, because it is so hard here to get to the common social medias I use: Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter. Even WordPress doesn’t work without an VPN, and if it does, it is really slow. So I had to figure out, when the best time was to go online and post things.

VII. Customer Services

…is the worst here! Especially in Shanghai. If you don’t yell at the vendor, waiter or waitress, you will be yelled at. I think that is really sad that you need to be that rude just to get what you want, but that’s how it works here. The other reason why I hate customer services here is, it is really poor until not available. When you ask something in a shop if they have something specific they just say they don’t have it, but that’s because they are too lazy to help you and would rather watch their Chinese drama on their phone than doing their work, so I often had to find it myself in the shop.

VIII. Chinese Efficiency

Of course we often think everywhere in the world there are some unnecessary steps for bureaucracy, but I feel like China is so unorganized that it makes the whole process even more worse than in Germany.

For example: the first day my friend and I wanted to create an bank account, so we went to the bank to do that. When we arrived, ‘the manager’ which is just a person, who is running around and asks you what you need, asked us what we wanted. We told him, that we wanted to create a Chinese bank account, so he told us to pull a number from the machine and wait. BUT we couldn’t pull a number by ourselves, we had to WAIT for a person to come to the machine and tell the person again what we wanted, so that person can pull a number for us. And then we had to wait for three hours. After waiting for three hours we had to tell the person at the counter what we wanted and then that person tells us what we need to do and need to have, which included a phone number, which we didn’t have by that time. So in the end, we had to go to the bank 5 times, which makes 15 hours in total, just for waiting. If I would count in the time we spent at the actual counter trying to proceed with creating an bank account, it would be a whole day. The best thing is of course, that I can’t even use my Chinese bank card.

IX. Air

The air was to those a problem, who were sensitive, but even to those, who weren’t, it had its impact on us. On a bad air day my throat was scratchy the whole day and I had to drink a lot to avoid that scratchiness in my throat. I also kind of understand now, why Chinese people are making these disgusting sounds as in V. It’s because of the air, you can also get really sick and tired from that polluted air. When I was in Beijing, every time I sneezed or was cleaning my nose, it was black. Yup, it sounds bad, but thank god there are air masks against pollutions in China. I wore them because my nose started to hurt on bad air days and it also protected me from sneezing people in the metro somehow. But what’s annoying about masks is, if you have a white one, like me, you shouldn’t wear make up.

X. Chinese Food

Chinese Food is in General just oily and when I studied abroad there were two days I really felt deep hate for that oily food. Salt is missing most of the time in the dishes and this last topic I hate about China is just a personal opinion.

Have you been to China yet? What did you not like about China or what surprised you?

I hate the personal the hygiene, manners towards women, racism, promises they never intend to keep.
How sneaky they are, how they lie…and how contracts are made…. not the mention the drinking requirements!!LOL…I rarely see hospitality unless there is something in it for them. ..and I really hate how unhappy most of the young people are….There culture demands criticism on all fronts and it is very very rare to hear them give a compliment or admit an error…Regarding business I hate how slow it is and how many managers there are..each with his own agenda making decision making almost impossible. ..I hate most of the food and the air I get terrible bronchitis every time I come home.

However, I love the artifacts and historical art that abounds there..It is interesting to see them come into their own and start to think out side the box instead of trying to copy everyone else….I also like seeing a middle class culture start to emerge there.

About being sneaky: they stole my phone when I was shopping for Christmas there – and the security didn’t even want to help me find the thief or let me take a look at the security camera! Nevertheless, I am trying to stay positive about Chinese people, there is always hope for everyone and everything!